Flow

Look, being honest, FLOW doesn’t need me telling you how good it is. The only way a meeting of these four musical minds could be bad is they covered songs by the Archies, KC & the Sunshine Band, and the 1910 Fruitgum Company. I would’ve been shocked if these cats produced anything but brilliance—and that’s what FLOW is. Brilliant.

Bill Binkelman (Zone Music Reporter)

Every genre needs a supergroup. With FLOW we finally have such a group in New Age music! I’m happy to report that their self-titled debut album is worthy of the «super» tag too. «FLOW» is a reminder of what made New Age music into an international phenomenon in the late 1980s, while at the same time showing why this genre is still relevant today.

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Look, being honest, FLOW doesn’t need me telling you how good it is. The only way a meeting of these four musical minds could be bad is they covered songs by the Archies, KC & the Sunshine Band, and the 1910 Fruitgum Company. I would’ve been shocked if these cats produced anything but brilliance—and that’s what FLOW is. Brilliant.

Bill Binkelman (Zone Music Reporter)

Every genre needs a supergroup. With FLOW we finally have such a group in New Age music! I’m happy to report that their self-titled debut album is worthy of the «super» tag too. «FLOW» is a reminder of what made New Age music into an international phenomenon in the late 1980s, while at the same time showing why this genre is still relevant today.

BT Fasmer (New Age Music Guide)

FLOW is a New Age-super group consisting of pianist Fiona Joy (the f), guitarist Lawrence Blatt (the l), trumpeter Jeff Oster (the o) and guitarist and founder of the legendary label, Windham Hill, William Ackerman (the W). Their self-titled debut creates a beautiful flow in the music that lives up to their name. As in the records on ECM, the pause plays a significant role. The music is allowed to breathe and silence becomes a companion to the pieces.

Jakob Baekgaard (All About Jazz)

It started as a trio record with Joy, Blatt, and Oster, with Ackerman producing (he had previously produced projects with each of them), and the guitarist’s studio partner, Tom Eaton, engineering, but it soon evolved into an actual group, with all four members contributing ideas to compositions they each brought in to record. The resulting album is a gorgeous and deeply affecting collection of sonically egalitarian instrumentals (Joy adds breathy, atmospheric vocal textures here and there) that live up to the group name—they flow beautifully, with parts rising and falling and blending and disappearing. I’ve never cared for the “new age” label, but this music certainly qualifies, with its subtly uplifting sonorities and gently meandering musical streams.

Blair Jackson (AcousticGuitar.com)

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